When microscopic marine organisms known as phytoplankton multiply into a dense population at the ocean’s surface, massive blooms can spread so far that they can only be seen from space. These algal blooms create beautiful patterns that can stretch for hundreds of miles and trace the ocean’s swirling currents.Phytoplankton are the foundation of the ocean food web and are critical to the health of nearly everything that lives there. They contain chlorophyll to perform photosynthesis and turn sunlight into energy which feeds their predators, and their predators’ predators, all the way up through the food chain to large fish, mammals and birds such as sharks, sea lions and penguins. Recent research suggests the fear that warming oceans could hamper phytoplankton growth may be real. The organisms depend on mixing of ocean water to bring nutrients such as phosphates and nitrates to the surface. As the ocean warms, it becomes more stratified, with the warmer water remaining at the top where the organisms need to be in order to do photosynthesis.

There’s an app for almost everything. Now add one that can run calculations from a supercomputer on a Nexus One phone in real time and without the need for internet connectivity. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Texas Advanced Computing Center have created an Android app that can take simulations from the powerful Ranger supercomputer and solve them further on the mobile phone. “The idea of using a phone is to show we can take a device with one chip and low power to compute a solution so it comes as close to the one solved on a supercomputer,” John Peterson, a research associate at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg works on an iPad in a lounge at Newark airport, Wednesday April 14, 2010, before his flight to Oslo from the United States was diverted to Spain because of the cloud of dust from a volcanic eruption in Iceland hanging over northern European air space.The iPad is an almost perfect travel computer. It’s easy to carry, works as a guide, a map, a book and it’s crazy-long battery life will let you sit back and watch another movie while your laptop-toting companions search for a power outlet. But as convenient as it is, a little preparation will make things even smoother. Here are some things you should do before you leave the house.